Media And Social Engineering

What I originally wanted to do with this thread was to point out the dishonesty of one "Conservative" Media source: Breitbart News aka breitbart.com. I found myself diving down a rabbit hole however. So firstly I would like to point out that breitbart.com is dishonest, we have the Shirley Sherrod fiasco, the ACORN prostitution fiasco and for it's latest...a pretty obvious bit of deception, two threads here (thread title got changed) and here, show this rather well.

Why does bretibart.com carry on the way it does? Let’s take a look at the one of the site’s editor and one of its main contributors. I offer what I believe is the answer later in my post.

Ben Shapiro: Editor at breitbart.com

Ben Shapiro-Shapiro has taken conservative stances on many social issues. He favors stronger military and law enforcement spending, as well as more restrictive laws against abortion and pornography. He also spoke favorably of tighter immigration restrictions and expanded government wiretapping powers of suspected terrorists. Shapiro is also strongly critical of the liberal beliefs of American Jews. Shapiro is also a very strong advocate for abstinence before marriage. He is also a staunch critic of judicial activism, supporting judges whom he believes interpret the United States Constitution according to its original meaning. He has advocated significantly modifying the jury system as it exists in the United States.[12]

wiki

Shapiro is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a group of Conservative Media journalists, authors, executives and political pundits who are:

Dedicated to the defense of free societies whose moral, cultural and economic foundations are under attack by leftist and Islamist enemies at home and abroad.

Freedom Center

A little more on the Freedom Center

The David Horowitz Freedom Center combats the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values and disarm this country as it attempts to defend itself in a time of terror. The leftist offensive is most obvious on our nation’s campuses, where the Freedom Center protects students from indoctrination and political harassment. Combining forceful analysis and bold activism, the Freedom Center provides strong insight into today’s most pressing issue on its family of websites and in the activist campaigns it wages on campus, in the news media, and in national politics throughout the year.

“If to be free is the most important goal of all, then to help someone else to be or to become free must be the most sublime and rewarding of human endeavors.”
—Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate

David Horowitz began the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in 1988 to establish a conservative presence in Hollywood and show how popular culture had become a political battleground. Over the next 18 years, CSPC attracted 50,000 contributing supporters and established programs such as The Wednesday Morning Club, the Individual Rights Foundation, and Students for Academic Freedom.

FrontPage Magazine, the Center’s online journal of news and political commentary has 1.5 million visitors and 620,000 unique visitors a month (65 million hits) and is linked to over 2000 other websites. DiscoverTheNetworks.com, launched in 2005, is the largest publicly accessible database defining the chief groups and individuals of the Left and their organizational interlocks. DTN has had more than 8 million visitors so far this year.

Since 2003, the Center has promoted an Academic Bill of Rights to support students’ academic freedom, and free the American university from political indoctrination and renew its commitment to true intellectual diversity. In 2006, the Center established another organization, Students and Parents for Academic Freedom in K-12 schools, modeled on the university campaign and with the same agenda: to take politics out of the public school classroom.

In 2006, the Center’s Board of Directors decided to change the name of the organization to the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

This organization seems to be Radical Right Zionists promoting Islamophobia .

Extremist foundations, think tanks, pundits, and bloggers carried out a 10-year-old campaign to promote fear of Islam and Muslims in the U.S.

August 29, 2011| A small group of inter-connected foundations, think tanks, pundits, and bloggers is behind the 10-year-old campaign to promote fear of Islam and Muslims in the U.S., according to a major investigative report released here Friday by the Center for American Progress (CAP).
The 130-page report, ‘Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America’, identifies seven foundations that have quietly provided a total of more than 42 million dollars to key individuals and organizations that have spearheaded the nation-wide effort between 2001 and 2009.
They include funders that have long been associated with the extreme right in the U.S., as well as several Jewish family foundations that have supported right-wing and settler groups in Israel.

alternet

I personally don’t believe that Conservatives in government or media actually fear Islam. I feel that most Conservatives in media and government aren’t really true to an ideology, just money. Conservatives abhor expansion of government and government control so in order for the MIC to become grotesquely oversized constituents must have an extremely valid reason to support such expansion. The MIC certainly has its democratic supporters but its powerbase is most definitely the Right.

The media becomes the tool to spread hate, fear and justification for intrusive, authoritarian government policy and agencies such as CISPA and DHS. Name a threat and then scare us into wanting protection at all cost.

Much of Islamophobia stems from the Verses in the Qur’an that state:

2:190-193 Fight in the cause of God, those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for God loveth not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out: For tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; But fight them not at the sacred Mosque unless they first fight you there; But if they fight you, Slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith. But if they cease, God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God; but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression."

2:216-217 Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But God knoweth, and ye know not. They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: "Fighting therein is a grave (offense); but graver is it in the sight of God to prevent access to the path of God, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members. Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be Companions of the Fire and will abide therein.

These verses are continuously taken out of context, it would be similar to taking a few passages of Israel’s flight from Egypt and using it against all of Judaism and Christianity to claim they are violent.

In reality those Verses relate to the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah and what actions would be permissible in Allah’s eyes in relation to the betrayal of that treaty against the Muslims.

In 629 AD, the Muslims returned as promised in the treaty, and made The first pilgrimage. The next year, the clan of the Banu Bakr, allied with the Quraish, attacked the Bedouin Khuza'a, Muhammad's allies. Muhammed considered the Banu Bakr attack a breach of the treaty, citing one of the clauses of the treaty: "an attack on an ally of the party, will be considered an attack on the party itself", and offered the Quraish three alternatives:
Dissolve their alliance with the Banu Bakr
Compensate by paying money
Dissolve the treaty
The Quraish chose the third alternative, to dissolve the treaty, and Muhammad decided to march on to Mecca with an army of 10,000, leading to the Conquest of Mecca.

wiki

Nation building is extremely profitable, you get to rape the land of its resources, make room for a new population, install Corporations and Banks as well as the people to run those. Easy money. All it costs is blood.
In my opinion the Right wing Media makes the sale. I believe they exploit the Conservative readership first, to keep us divided, second with sensational headlines that attack the perceived demons of the left, they generate money and support for their agendas.

That is not to say the Left-wing media isn’t guilty of using their own form of social engineering to make us lefties believe we are fighting such disgusting tactics when in reality our “guys” are supporting Nation Building too. This is why I invite others to expose the Liberal Media in this thread.

You said the magic words, Kali: "Radical right Zionists." That explains just about every phenomenon on the right these days.

In a few generations, historians will have a field day scratching their heads and trying to figure out how the American right, which used to hate and be staunchly opposed to all things Judaic and Zionist, came to be utterly taken over by Zionism in the space of a few short decades. The answer, I feel, is not all that complex: A few highly motivated ideolgues with deep pockets simply spewed cash in all the right places.

Somehow the old WASP overclass that used to define the monied interests of America has gone soft and senile and been replaced with a hybrid Zionist-Zionist/"Christian"-Zionist neocon juggernaut that is now calling all the shots. Unlike their relatively genteel predecesors, they are media-savy and have their claws in the heart of popular culture as well as the old-boys networks.

Somebody save us!

The leftists were the first to pioneer the understanding of how the media is manipulated for social engineering purposes. All the postmodern theorists, the Frankfurt School, people like Foucault and Derrida: their life work involved exploring the nexus between the media and society. And all these people were mid-20th century leftists.

We can say that today's neocons are, among other things, conservatives that have applied the lessons of the postmodern leftists to rightward goals, and these tactics are especially evident in contemporary conservative media.

An interesting question might be: How and why have the leftists "dropped the ball" on the media? Or have they? My own relatively disinterested impression is that the leftists have a lock on "identity politics": race, gender, and so on. These are relatively long-term goals and relate less to things like wars and electoral politics, where the right seems more dominant. So you have the right shaping short-term opinions about military matters, finance, and (increasingly) elections through media manipulation, while on the other hand the left is molding long-term perceptions of identity, gender, race, family, and other fundamental social building-blocks.

Personally I wish they would both quit it, and that people of all ideological stripes would manipulate less and adopt more of a committment to objectivity, but I know that's not how this filthy old world works. Fortuately, we have the Internet to compensate, if we are wise enough as individuals to choose to use it in such a manner.

Media And Social Engineering.

Which side has had the most influential effect on American society to date ?

Both sides are, and always have been free to argue the facts vs the fictions.

All sides being equal, who is "ahead" ?

Which side is more prone to "over reacting" ?

Which side appears to be more "sensationalized" ?

reply to post by Leftist


I've wondered about that, how did the good old boys who were largely VERY Christian end up Zionists? The logic just doesn't seem to be there unless we're taking into account money.

reply to post by silent thunder

The leftists were the first to pioneer the understanding of how the media is manipulated for social engineering purposes. All the postmodern theorists, the Frankfurt School, people like Foucault and Derrida: their life work involved exploring the nexus between the media and society. And all these people were mid-20th century leftists.

You've given me something to look into thank-you. I feel like even though I've given up the left/right illusion in government, I'm still left and that makes it difficult to see shadiness when my language is being spoken. It's worth a left/right conversation to expose both sides.

Personally I wish they would both quit it, and that people of all ideological stripes would manipulate less and adopt more of a committment to objectivity, but I know that's not how this filthy old world works. Fortuately, we have the Internet to compensate, if we are wise enough as individuals to choose to use it in such a manner.

I do too, I'm so tired of lies and choices between crap and crap. Exposing the media will help us punch through to the other side, I think, which hopefully is a more honest side.

reply to post by xuenchen


The answer is both.
Why do we accept this?

I was hoping more people would take up my offer to add to this thread but I guess I will do so as I come across new information.

This is part of the reason I love The Young Turks.
Video including interview at link.
Rejecting Lucrative Offer, Cenk Uygur Leaves MSNBC After Being Told to "Act Like an Insider"

After giving a nearly six-month tryout for the internet talk show host Cenk Uygur, the cable news channel MSNBC is preparing to instead award its 6:00 p.m. prime-time slot to the Reverend Al Sharpton. MSNBC President Phil Griffin offered Uygur a well-paid but lower-profile on-air slot, but Uygur rejected the offer, saying the decision to demote him was politically motivated. Uygur is known for aggressively interrogating leading Washington figures and challenging the political establishment, which he alleges made some MSNBC executives uneasy. He said Griffin had called him into his office in April and told him he had been talking to people in Washington and that they did not like Uygur’s tone. We speak with Uygur, who also blogs at several liberal websites and hosts a popular internet and radio show, "The Young Turks." "It is corporate media... It’s not just MSNBC. You think that the CNN hosts can aggressively challenge government officials? I don’t think so,” says Uygur. [includes rush transcript]

I believed MSNBC to be fairly (not 100%) but maybe better than others, this was pretty disappointing for me to come across. We need the very thing, in the MSM, that Cenk brings to the table...he calls BS when he sees it, even if it's on someone he likes. This article goes to show that politicians and corporations most definitely do control the information we receive.